Pinnacles, spires and towers
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The Mace is right on the outskirts of Sedona, you park your car in a city park and hike about half an hour through beauticious scenery to get to it.
It's five pitches, probably 600' or 700' total. The crux (fourth) pitch is 5.9+, and is solid for the grade. J-Rock led that pitch for me.
I led the last pitch, the "jump," which I think is a misnomer since you climb up the gap on ascent (no jump involved), and then rapel down the back of the tower to get off (still no jump involved). Though I suppose a certain type of guy would go back and make the jump anyway just to say he did.
Anyway, the deal with that last pitch is a committing move, in which you lean forward and let yourself fall into a wall in front of you, with your body bridging a three foot gap in which you can see down a couple hundred feet. After that the actual climbing is easy, no worse than 5.6, but it is psychologically sandbagged.
It's five pitches, probably 600' or 700' total. The crux (fourth) pitch is 5.9+, and is solid for the grade. J-Rock led that pitch for me.
I led the last pitch, the "jump," which I think is a misnomer since you climb up the gap on ascent (no jump involved), and then rapel down the back of the tower to get off (still no jump involved). Though I suppose a certain type of guy would go back and make the jump anyway just to say he did.
Anyway, the deal with that last pitch is a committing move, in which you lean forward and let yourself fall into a wall in front of you, with your body bridging a three foot gap in which you can see down a couple hundred feet. After that the actual climbing is easy, no worse than 5.6, but it is psychologically sandbagged.
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